


The Three of Them

by kosmonauttihai



Category: Jurassic World Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Multi, Past Animal Abuse, Past Child Abuse/Neglect, a fic about raptor feels basically, ambiguously part-raptor Maisie, familial bonds focused with f/m and f/f relationships also featured, nondetailed descriptions of animal death by dinosaur, occasional dinosaur POV, reminiscing and regrets about raptors past, wondering about the whereabouts of raptors present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-01 22:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16774273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosmonauttihai/pseuds/kosmonauttihai
Summary: Some joys and complications of some of your family being Velociraptors while some of them are not.Post Fallen Kingdom, AU in that the Indoraptor is still around, too, because things weren't complicated enough without, I guess.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (Considering the other JW fic I've posted I should probably clarify, yeah Claire and Owen are together in this one. The two fics are not part of the same continuity.)

It wasn't any easier this time, and he didn't know how to pretend it was easy, this time. Not that it had helped before—might have just made things go even more wrong.

He'd thought it would do Claire good to let go of her need to be in control of everything, to let herself care about things and about people, or to show that she did without caring more about whether it made her look weak. It hadn't been until she'd come back after getting sick of his shit (yes, alright, _she_ did leave _him_ ), to remind him of what he'd tried hard for three years to keep himself from thinking about (while thinking about it every day anyway), that he'd started to realize maybe that was advice he should take, himself, if he wanted to stop messing up everything he got himself into.  
  
It didn't mean it was fun to be in touch with your feelings when your primary feeling was overwhelming worry. But, at least he didn't have to pretend to Claire and Maisie that none of it had gotten to him, and it would be unfair to them to do so. They'd already seen him with tears in his eyes about it, after all (or, he was pretty sure they both had—it had been dark outside the mansion—but he'd been obvious enough about it they'd come over to hug him, so, as good as).  
  
The three of them were doing okay, all things considered. Claire's leg was healing. She'd started swimming again, and actually having fun doing that, though any diving was still out (not because of the leg, but the gyrosphere). Maisie had started school, with actual other children, and had made a few friends. They were all traumatized in one way or another, but they didn't hide it from each other. This time around he and Claire were a team, and they supported each other, instead of putting on masks in front of each other. He'd worried, when Maisie had found him in the kitchen in the middle of the night, about admitting he'd had a nightmare. But it had prompted her to confess she'd had one, too, and to be reassured there was nothing to be ashamed of in that.  
  
Then she'd hugged him. She still did that a lot, after the initial phase of all three of them clinging to each other in a crisis had worn off. He got the feeling she hadn't been hugged a lot and was making up for that. He was happy to help. He felt like he'd already raised four children and had never gotten to hug them, after all.  
  
And maybe he had to admit to himself already, that that's exactly what had happened. He hadn't been able to look at those video logs again—yet—but at least he knew now why he'd kept them, and why watching them the night before returning to the island had made him feel like a sad dad reminiscing over old home videos of the kids he'd lost.  
  
Three of his daughters had died right in front of him. In a way the fourth, too, since for a while he'd _thought_ she'd died. It was kind of hilarious he'd assumed he could just be fine right after.  
  
And now she was out there somewhere, all alone again.  
  
He hadn't known about the volcano, of course, when he'd left her behind on Isla Nublar, and had been able to tell himself she'd be fine, probably, living in an environment more natural for her than the paddock ever had been. She was a lone pack animal, though, and small compared to her neighbors on the island. Not to mention he'd seen her get thrown into a wall hard enough that he and her sisters had assumed she'd died. She had seemed fine when she'd run off, but you never knew. For three years Owen had had no way of knowing how safe his first-born might be, or if she was even alive. Trying not to care whether she was had been about as effective as a way of coping as the beer had.  
  
At least he'd known _where_ she was. When they had needed to know exactly where on the island, there had been the tracker system. Now any clues he had of Blue's whereabouts were potential sightings or _casualties_ she'd leave in her wake, which did not feel at all reassuring. So far, he had heard nothing that could with certainty be connected to her, which was also not exactly reassuring.  
  
He reminded himself, daily, that she was smart, and that when she got hungry there were still wild animals on this continent for her to hunt. But she was also used to humans, and not afraid of them. That was never a good prognosis for a wild animal big enough to be a threat. Here she was just as likely to become prey as she had been on the island if she crossed paths with something bigger than herself—only, here the predator most dangerous to her was smaller and weaker than her, and looked deceptively, and temptingly, like food.  
  
Or, like family. He liked to think that if it was loneliness that would end up causing her to seek out humans, it wouldn't be just any random ones. As much as he knew she was dangerous and that it was no longer just his own safety he had to take into account, he couldn't help but dream that one morning he'd walk out onto the porch to find her sleeping there like a lost puppy returned home. As much as Claire and Maisie knew, too, he got the feeling he wasn't the only one in this house hoping for that.  
  
A Velociraptor wasn't a pet, and he couldn't keep her like one. She'd made that clear by refusing to be transported in a cage. But if she was with him he could protect her, like he should have. He wasn't sure at what point and how he could have done any more of that, just that it felt wrong that he couldn't keep her safe. He supposed that came with being a parent.  
  
But when it came to prehistoric animals on the loose, there were of course a lot more of them to be concerned about than just her. Owen had heard the Pteranodons had migrated to Las Vegas, and when harassed enough with capture attempts there, had vanished to nest who knows where. And they _were_ nesting, reports said. Those things could lift a grown-up human in the air, did not restrict their diet to fish, and they were breeding.  
  
It was unclear whether it was just them that were. The park had always kept a close eye on the large carnivores' populations, with only female animals cloned, this time without frog DNA. He knew they'd had a mated pair of Baryonyx, brought over from Isla Sorna when it had needed evacuating due to its own ecological disaster, but not whether the individuals rescued now included them. There had been a baby Triceratops among the dinosaurs released at the mansion that sure had looked too young to have hatched in a lab.

Obviously no one had been told it was Maisie who'd set them loose; she was too young for the responsibility. She'd asked, a few times, whether she'd made the right choice, and he'd said it wasn't a wrong one. That hadn't been a lie. It had come with consequences, but so would the other option have.  
  
At least there was only one T. rex among the consequences. Surprisingly enough she seemed to be among the more stable cases at the moment. After a snack stop at a zoo, which had cost the place a bunch of antelopes and one lion (as well as time spent rounding up escaped animals of their own due to her breaking fences), she'd done her apparent best to leave the spotlight for a quiet woodland retreat. She was technically on the loose, but in practice was under careful monitoring just at the edge of a nature reserve, seeming content to be fed again by humans who were hoping to keep her in one place that way, until someone in charge decided what to do about her. Must be nice being such an iconic species she'd even been made a cash-cow star attraction of Jurassic World rather than shot on sight already then, when it was well known she'd eaten a person during the incident with the first park (Owen wondered if Donald Gennaro's family had ever paid the finished park a visit, and how they'd felt standing in that log tunnel). Apparently, these days she mostly napped.  
  
No such luck that Blue would, too, being a younger and smaller animal with faster metabolism.  
  
But the dinosaur he was the most scared of anyone running into was the one whose behavior was also the hardest to predict, with no research data available, whether guessed from fossils or observed for a few decades from live animals—not even as much as an entry on the S.S. Arcadia manifest. It had never been on the island, after all.  
  
He'd sworn that thing wouldn't leave the building when he'd first seen it. And, in a cage packed in a truck headed for wherever the Russian mafia kept their attack animals, it hadn't. It had left on its own two feet (or, four, as it seemed to prefer, though those were definitely not forelegs it had, proportionally huge as they were for arms). For months afterwards, the three of them had been expecting the Indoraptor to show up behind their window one night, come to catch the prey that had gotten away. In the first weeks of troubled sleep with the knowledge of it being out there, they had thought it best to add grates to the windows for some peace of mind. But so far those had not been tested, and they had seen no sign of it. Just like of Blue, nobody had.  
  
He could hope it had proven unable to survive in the wild, having spent all its life until then in a cage, as sad as he had to admit that was—like the Indominus rex, or any of them, it wasn't like the creature had asked to be made. But like Blue, it was smart, and _un_ like Blue, designed for hiding from and hunting down specifically humans. And what had the way it had slipped away from them been all about?  
  
He'd been sure that would be it when the creature had turned out to be (functionally but not entirely, right?) bulletproof. He'd been less sure about whether to find it more ridiculous or terrifying that it had bothered to _pretend_ for a moment that he'd killed it, like the whole thing had been a joke to it, or a fun game. (Perhaps it had been. As unnatural a being as the Indoraptor was, play was a natural behavior for intelligent animals, and for hunting carnivores play tended to take forms that you probably had no room to find all that disturbing, at least in theory, after you'd raised four Velociraptors. Boredom was stressful to a predator, and life in a cage had probably involved plenty of that. Getting to chase all those humans around might very well have been the best thing that had ever happened to it, not that you were exactly inclined to be happy for the damn thing when you were the one getting chased.)  
  
His back hitting the wall, unarmed, Owen had tried not to risk redirecting the beast's attention with a glance at the bed, to check if Maisie was okay (as okay as she could be, about to witness a guy get eaten alive, and unless she had the sense to use that as a distraction to escape, she'd be next). The Indoraptor had seemed not to care; it had known where to find its next prey, and had been taking its time with the current one, confident everything would go its way.

And then, suddenly, Blue had found him.  
  
She must have been _looking for him_ , considering if she'd wanted to just get out, the top floor was not a good exit route. Even though Owen should have been the one protecting her— _somehow_ —and even while still recovering from a gunshot wound of her own, she'd put herself between him and the monster. Crouched ready for a pounce and roaring, she'd made as clear as could be that trying to hurt this rookie who'd brought three rounds of ammo to a claw fight would be a free ticket to an asskicking on his behalf.  
  
And to his surprise, the Indoraptor had flinched back.

Maybe it had never come across something that wouldn't just keel over and die, and had been confused. But so had he been, soon after, when the two dinosaurs' hissing and growling had turned into the kind of sounds he'd heard a lot more of while raising Blue and her sisters.  
  
Blue had snapped her jaws at the Indoraptor, and it had tilted its head in a way that had been so reminiscent of Charlie it hurt.  
  
The Indoraptor's garbled attempts at vocalization might have been like a chainsmoker with a bad cold version of what Owen was used to interpreting, but the more he'd listened, the more he'd been brought back to the days after Echo had tried to claim Blue's spot in the pack's pecking order and Blue had taken that so well she'd kicked her little sister's jaw off its hinges. Owen had watched the two of them carefully navigate being packmates again, with Blue even helping Echo eat while she'd been patched up and recovering, and he'd listened to their warily soothing chitters.  
  
The gaze of the Indoraptor's sharp, reflective eyes had darted around the room, like Delta's had when she'd been given a new puzzle, and instead of trying the obvious solution she'd calculated her way around the hidden obstacles.  
  
Owen didn't like letting himself think of the living weapon as just another animal _(that thing out there, that's no dinosaur)_ , one that wanted to live and was trying its best to do so with all it knew of the world. But it had been hard not to when it had suddenly reminded him so much of his girls.  
  
A bark from Blue had brought the Indoraptor's focus back to her. Then they had both turned, to look at _him_ , and Owen had felt his blood go cold, Barry's words in the woods of Isla Nublar fresh on his mind: _something's wrong. They're communicating._ He'd heard the wood of the floor splinter under the Indoraptor's long claws as its fingers had flexed and twitched. Its tail had squirmed like an annoyed cat's. Two pairs of unblinking raptor eyes had stared at him, and he had not known what to expect.

Then, Blue had bobbed her head and let out the purring trill sound she'd reserved for him ever since she'd been a hatchling—the one she'd made when he'd scritched her chin, praised her for learning something new, sometimes just when he'd entered the room. The one she'd made when he'd shown her trust and taken off the headset other humans had put on her like a tether.

He shouldn't have doubted her. They were still pack. He was still her family.  
  
She had turned her back on him again, to look at the Indoraptor. Under her watchful eyes, slowly, head bowed but quietly growling the whole time, it had backed out of the balcony door it had come in and climbed back onto the roof, finding its way down and out of the mansion somewhere. That had been the last they'd seen of it.  
  
And not long after that, they had seen the so far last of Blue, too. If Owen concentrated hard enough he could still feel her scaly snout against his palm.

He hoped wherever she was, she was safe. All he could do for her right now was worry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for that animal death mentioned in the tags. Carnivores being carnivores.

The furry mammal was still wriggling as she carried it in her jaws. She let it; it would not get free, and she would rather the meal was as fresh as possible when it became a meal.  
  
She trod over the mossy forest floor and leapt over fallen branches, swift and silent.  
  
Night was beginning to fall, and she considered whether to make use of her vision being superior to that of most of her prey and go hunting again later. The mammal was a small catch, though suitably sized for its purpose, but she could probably find something else, too, under the cover of darkness. She could decide once she reached her den.  
  
She paused at a small gap in the trees, peering down into the valley outside the woods. She often did. She could smell them, and she could see their lights, hear some of the sounds they made to each other. Every time she stopped, she considered if this was the time she went down there, since she was this close already.  
  
The mammal in her jaws kicked, and she continued on her way. But after a few more steps, she stopped.  
  
Something was coming.  
  
She crouched down, and listened. She heard its footsteps, but it was downwind, and she could not yet identify it. In the low light, she was beginning to see the outline of a body between the trees, and wary movements, which suddenly paused. It knew she was there.  
  
It was close enough now that she could smell it, too. She wasn't sure what to do, based on that; this was not the creature she had planned on encountering first. But she could tell the feeling was mutual, it had only just now noticed her and had not come looking for her.  
  
She made an inquisitive growl, and raised her head a little out of the undergrowth.  
  
Before the other got to react, there was a sound from the valley. She recognized the tone: the sound was a call, for this creature; a parent's concern. The small human standing in front of her startled, hastily picked something off the ground before backing away from her as quickly as it could, and finally turned and ran into the human den in the valley. She could smell their food they had there, through the opening it had used, and she could smell the others.  
  
She rose a little higher, and watched the human den for a moment longer, but it only reminded her she had something to take care of, more urgent than deciding whether to approach and how. Another reminder was that the mammal had stopped struggling.  
  
She continued on her way, swift and silent.

* * *

"You're sure it was her?" Claire asked her.  
  
They were sitting around the kitchen table, dinner plates in front of them, but none of them had touched their food since Maisie had mentioned her today's discovery. Perhaps she should have waited until later. She wasn't sure she could have done that any more than she could have concentrated on eating before getting it out.  
  
Maisie nodded. "Near the path up the hill. She was hiding in a bush, but I saw her eyes reflect the lights. I got scared, but I don't think she was going to hurt me," she assured. "I think I startled her."  
  
Owen turned to look out the window, not that he could see anything through it except the room's reflection against the darkness. But Maisie knew he wasn't looking to see, but because the window faced the direction where she had been.  
  
"You got pretty close without her noticing, then," he said, and turned back to the table. "You just saw the eyes?"  
  
"Yes, but it was her. It was Blue. I remember her from the mansion, the way she... Oh! And she made a sound."  
  
"What kind of sound?" Owen asked.  
  
"A growl. But I think it was a question."  
  
They both raised their eyebrows at her.  
  
Maisie shrugged. She wasn't sure how she knew, either, any more than she was sure of how exactly she had recognized Blue before even seeing the eyes, just that she had. "She wasn't hunting. She already had a bunny."  
  
Claire and Owen glanced at each other.  
  
"Okay," Owen said with a small smile, and seemed to notice for the first time since they sat down that he had food in front of him, despite having prepared about half of it. Before popping the fork in his mouth, he said, "I wonder how long she's been here, and how close she's staying."  
  
Maisie hadn't noticed her being here before, but she also hadn't gone into the woods much, this time only going as far as she had this late because a sudden wind had carried her drone there when it had already been running out of batteries—she had been testing recently how little light the camera could operate with—and she had worried the moisture from dew would damage it if she left it out there overnight. The fall had broken off one of the rotors, and it was still out there on the forest floor.  
  
"We probably shouldn't go looking for her," Claire said, giving both of them a look. "She knows where to find us, now."  
  
And she was a Velociraptor, no matter how much they all wanted her to be all right and how much Owen loved her. She probably wouldn't hurt them. But Maisie supposed it was true she also shouldn't be given a reason to, by possibly making her feel cornered and threatened.  
  
Sleep didn't come easily to Maisie that night, now for a different reason than when she had expected every tapping of a branch on a window to be a claw looking for a latch.  
  
That fear hadn't gone away, exactly. She knew how close she had come to becoming prey, once, and she knew the one who had hunted her was still out there. But it made sense, didn't it, that if he was still tracking her down to kill her, he should have found her by now—fixating on a target assigned to him was what they had made him for. She would be glad to no longer be that target, of course, but perhaps, if he had learned to let one go when the chase got impractical to continue, he might be all right, too.  
  
There was so much more to the world than Maisie had gotten to see and hear about, sheltered and hidden in the mansion. It wasn't so bad, was it, to not be very sorry that another living being that had grown up within its walls got to discover that, too.  
  
Somewhere around two in the morning she was drawn from the dream she had finally fallen into, by the feeling of a new presence.  
  
She couldn't hear it, exactly, and it was outside. She sat up in her bed, and considered peeking out the window. Their bedrooms were upstairs, so whoever was out there would probably not see her look—unless, of course, it was very tall. The bigger dinosaurs could move surprisingly silently when they wanted to, but Maisie had good hearing, and their steps made small tremors when they were close enough.  
  
She could think of one that wouldn't make a sound, and would be able to reach her window if he wanted to. But the one outside wasn't hiding, more than what was sensible caution. Within what she thought was also sensible caution, Maisie dared to conclude her family wasn't being hunted.  
  
It was probably Blue, which made her all the more eager to see outside.  
  
Maisie wondered if she was here just to investigate the neighborhood, or if she had thought she would meet them here. Humans weren't nocturnal, though Maisie was a bit of a night owl. Blue had grown up around humans, so she was probably familiar with their typical sleep cycle.  
  
Maisie got out of bed. She crept to the edge of her window on the wall opposite from her bed, and carefully lifted the curtain from where it was hanging against the frame. She didn't see anything moving in the backyard, or at the lakeshore, the water making detecting silhouettes against it easy. It was probably on the other side of the house. If she wanted to see it, she would have to go downstairs, as all windows on this floor faced the same way.  
  
She should probably have woken up her parents—they _were_ her parents, now, weren't they; it was still new to think she had any, but she was pretty sure she now did—but before she had thought that, she had already reached the bottom of the stairs. She stayed in the shadow of the stairway, looking out any windows she could see from there.  
  
The ticking of the kitchen wall clock was loud in the absence of other sounds. The darkness behind the glass remained undisturbed. Directly in front of her was the front door, and the windows closest to it had the curtains drawn. She still couldn't see it, but she knew the presence was behind the door.  
  
Was Blue trying to get in? Maisie assumed she could open doors, but both doors were locked. There were no signs the door was being tried, though. Being this close, Blue probably also knew Maisie was there on the other side.  
  
She sat there on the stairs a moment longer. Finally there was a faint rustling sound outside, and then it receded. The presence was gone. She didn't think she had scared Blue away, or she would have left as soon as Maisie had come downstairs.  
  
She went back to bed, and, tired from her lack of sleep, managed to doze for long enough it was starting to be light out when she woke up. All she could remember of her dream was running, but not to escape, perhaps in pursuit—a common theme in her dreams. Sometimes in them, she had feathers, but she didn't remember ever flying.  
  
When Claire and Owen came down for breakfast, she waited, with patience she was proud of, until they had all eaten before telling them about the visit. Then they went to open the front door together.  
  
The morning air felt a little chilly. There was a layer of mist flooding the valley that turned the light from the sunrise into a soft, pink glow all around the house, and here and there on the grass sparkled clusters of dewdrops. On the porch in front of the door, was a dead rabbit.  
  
A gruesome and unpleasant surprise under other circumstances, probably, but they could all guess what it meant. Owen and Claire deemed it was probably not safe to eat after it had sat there all night and been carried in the teeth of a dinosaur, but to not be ungrateful they should be discreet about disposing of it.  
  
Maisie walked around the house, watching the mist lift and fade away, and became all the more certain Blue had been there; it was like she could detect her scent in the still-damp air. It was there when she approached the rabbit Owen was holding, too. But when she got closer, she froze.  
  
Blue had brought the rabbit. But besides her and the dead animal itself, she could smell something else on it, too, like something lingered on it just from having been near. And she didn't think Blue had brought the rabbit all the way from her bedroom at the Lockwood manor, where she had last sensed that.


	3. Chapter 3

Zia had a pancake in her mouth when her girlfriend told her the call she had picked up on Zia's phone for her was urgent. She did her best to chew quickly—a waste of Mira's cooking that would have deserved to be savored—and waved her hands. It was to signal she needed a moment, at first, but got quickly redirected towards the chair on her other side when she noticed the cat about to get on the table again. The adorable little bastard didn't get fed vet grade food just to deprive his poor moms of their breakfast.  
  
Mira smiled at her gesturing, and couldn't keep the expression out of her voice. "She'll be with you in a second."  
  
Zia got the phone in her hand as soon as she had swallowed. "Yes, hello, Dr. Rodriguez speaking," she answered in what she hoped was her professional tone.  
  
"Zia, good morning! It's Claire," said the person on the other end.  
  
Zia gave the still smiling Mira a glare, a half-hearted one that inevitably morphed into a smile of her own within a few seconds, because she just had that effect. Not even the half seemed to hit its mark, and Mira simply reached over to steal a bite of Zia's remaining pancake.

From the third chair at the table, Glunkus (supposed placeholder name for the rescue kitty they were _supposed_ to have been only fostering) wrinkled his nose in what might have been insulted sense of justice over distribution of pancake-thieving rights, or it might have been an incoming yawn.  
  
"I'm sorry to bother you this early, but I thought you should know as soon as possible about what we've found," Claire said.  
  
DPG business, then, not a social call, Zia concluded. That was still a thing, after all. "Which one is it?" she asked.

"As in which dinosaur?" Mira whispered at her, and at Zia's nod she leaned in closer. They had met on one of DPG's visits to schools shortly before the whole travelling to an island about to explode and getting kidnapped thing, and after one of them had finally managed to ask the other out, Zia had discovered that not only had the kids' beautiful teacher she'd gotten along with so well indeed wanted to talk to her about dinosaurs alone at the end of the day because she found her attractive, but she also did actually want to talk about dinosaurs, because she was as fascinated with them as Zia was. What were the chances, right? Not of finding women interested in cool things, obviously, but that the are-you-flirting-with-me-or-are-you-just-being-nice phase had only lasted a day.

Over the phone, Claire took an audible breath before answering the question addressed to her. "It's Blue. She's here."

Zia sat up from her slouch in her chair so fast she hit her toe on a table leg. "That's great!" She said betweed her clenched teeth.

"Are you—" Claire asked at the same time Mira whispered it.

Zia lifted her foot onto the chair to tuck it under her other leg. "I'm fine," Zia assured. "Mira, remind me when we get a bigger kitchen table it's got to be one of those with just one leg in the middle, I always manage to put my chair next to one."

"I'm gonna tie a pillow on that table leg before you break something," Mira said, and got up from the table, apparently having been serious about that. She picked up Glunkus to take him with her, gave Zia a kiss on the top of her head, and left the kitchen with a "Tell me later what I missed."

Zia knew she would probably hear her at the other end of the small apartment even if she tried not to. She mentally put that on the list of requirements for when they finally decided on a place to move in together, wondering how much it would limit their options. So far the list had consisted of 'pets allowed' and 'not haunted'—and maybe now 'furnished with tables made out of foam'.

"So, Blue—how is she, is she okay?" she got back on topic. "Are _you_ okay? I mean, it's great you've found her, but are your neighbors' kids and animals okay?"

"As far as we know... yes. To all of that," Claire told her. "Owen and I haven't actually seen her, but it looks like she's dropped by last night, and is okay enough to be hunting—apparently local wildlife." Claire cleared her throat. "She left us a rabbit for breakfast."

"Cute, if that really was her and not, like, a neighbor you've pissed off." Zia took another bite of her own meal, figuring Claire wouldn't mind that much. "You're sure?"  
  
"Maisie ran into her yesterday."  
  
Zia wondered why they hadn't called her yesterday, then, to let her know 'as soon as possible'. She got the feeling more news was coming.  
  
"She says Blue wasn't going to hurt her, and, well, she didn't," Claire continued. "We're not letting her go into the woods alone, but it looks like Blue doesn't want to be a danger to us..."  
  
She sounded a little unsure about that, but Zia didn't blame her.  
  
They had all seen Blue let Owen pet her, and she seemed very attached to him, so being the smart girl that she was she should know the human who had raised her wouldn't want her to harm his human family, which she would recognize them to be even just by them smelling to her like they were near him a lot. But, she was a predatory wild animal. As fond of dinosaurs and Blue in particular as Zia was, and knew Claire was, she didn't envy her for having to trust a Velociraptor to count her child as not-prey enough to let the kid out of the house at all, not to mention Claire's own safety. They all knew Blue was perfectly capable of taking down a grown-up human if she wanted to, even an armed one.  
  
"What about the town?" Zia asked.  
  
She saw from the corner of her eye Glunkus sneak back into the kitchen, but instead of going for the pancakes, he jumped onto the windowsill with a high-pitched chirrup. There must have been birds out there to fantasize about sinking his claws in.  
  
"I don't know," Claire said. "I think maybe we should warn them, but we've got a lot of hunters with their own guns around here. If she's not a danger, going after her will _make_ her one."  
  
Zia hummed in agreement. "She _has_ stayed clear of people so far, or we'd have picked up her trail before." She took a sip from her coffee.  
  
"People are being careful anyway, right? Blue's presence might not give them more reason to be," Claire quickly agreed. "If she can feed herself without bothering anyone... Oh! Do you think _we_ should feed her?"  
  
"Like the T.rex?" Zia asked with a snort, and got up to walk over to the window, a little awkwardly though the toe wasn't really hurting much anymore. "The old girl's living like a forest goddess right now, with her worshippers bringing her sacrifices." She took the drawstring of the roller blind and pulled it up out of reach of Glunk's restless paws. Before turning to look out the window, herself, she picked up one of his toys from the floor and threw it into the living room, successfully redirecting his energy into sprinting after it. "I don't think they have her under control as much as they think they do, though. The minute she gets bored of the pampering, she's out of there."  
  
Claire sighed. "For her sake as much as the people's, I hope that won't be soon."  
  
Famous or not, a T.rex would not be given a second chance if she decided a residential area suddenly looked like a hunting ground (especially with the 1997 San Diego incident in public memory, though of course no one bothered to remember that the animal involved in that had been overdosed on naltrexone at the time, not to mention forcibly separated from his young that he had been searching). Zia wondered if their resident rex understood the precariousness of her situation, too. She wasn't invincible, and after being captured twice by humans while full-grown, and nearly killed by the Indominus, Zia doubted Rexy was fooled into thinking herself to be. She was an old lady, if a fierce one. Maybe that made her wise enough to tell when she had a good arrangement she shouldn't shake up or she'd ruin it. Then again, maybe it made her wise enough to know the humans' generosity was a temporary measure while they came up with a permanent one that she might not like.  
  
Blue seemed to have learned that lesson already. She wouldn't go in a cage just because a human, even _her_ human, thought it was best for her. Yet, there she was now, having made her own way to her human anyway.  
  
"So, a big bird feeder for the big bird that's Blue, huh... Well, that depends, do you think she'll connect being given food to specifically you guys, or humans in general?" Zia asked, then waved her hand in a 'scratch that' gesture Claire wouldn't even see. "Never mind, we can probably assume just you in this case, I mean, she's already been accustomed to humans since she hatched. I doubt you could make that worse by inviting her to your backyard, so long as it _is_ only ever yours, and you're comfortable having her there. Should be better for that local wildlife, too, if she has a safe alternative to them as a food source." She sat back down at the table. "So the question is, does she intend to stay, or is she visiting."  
  
"There are not a lot of better places for her to go," Claire said.  
  
It didn't mean Blue knew that, of course. Unless the company made that place the best one to her.  
  
But how long-term of a solution could that be, either? Zia didn't have to say out loud that if she stayed, eventually people would find out, and that could drastically change how good the place was for her.  
  
Not to mention a long-term solution for dinosaurs that got captured alive in general was still in the works. The island Mr. Lockwood had thought his money was being used to turn into a dinosaur sanctuary did exist, but was not quite as free of red tape to get dinosaurs moved to it as Mills had made it sound to Claire, not to mention it needed more research into whether its ecosystem could support both them and its native species, as nobody wanted a repeat of Site B's fate. Maisie had bought the last of Isla Nublar's survivors time, but it was still not in the bag that it hadn't been for nothing.  
  
Zia was doing what she could, as they all still did. She might have walked into the pitfall of studying for a specific job that by the time she graduated no longer existed like a good millenial, with her choice of the paleoveterinary field, but she had chosen it out of love for these animals. While they still existed her expertise could be of some use to them, whether it was hands-on or consultative.  
  
Blue had the extra complication of being the only one of her species, which would keep her from living as nature had intended even if the environment was right. Maybe it would be possible to have a few more raptors cloned, if it could be promised it wasn't a place with humans in it they would be released to. She would probably need to be captured for the process of introducing them to her, but if it could be done and she ended up with a pack, maybe she'd forgive them.  
  
"Anyway, Blue is not what I'm the most worried about, and if it was just her, this would be a lot easier," Claire broke the silence, and quickly began filling it. "Maisie believes that we've also found another one of the missing dinosaurs, or, I suppose, it's found us. Well, she's certain about it, at least, this time—and dinosaurs do have their own smell just like any animals, so I _do_ believe her, even if that's all we have to go on, so..."  
  
"...You're probably not gonna say it's the fifth Gallimimus, are you," Zia cut in, a little taken aback by the blurt. "I mean, shit, after how long she's been mysteriously missing when all the others in her herd are accounted for—like you said, people have guns—you just _might_ save that she's been fine the whole time for the dramatic reveal later and start with Blue." She waited for two hopeful seconds. "Or maybe not."  
  
Claire was quiet for long enough for Zia to drain her coffee mug, and that certainly answered that.  
  
Mira walked back into the kitchen, holding the pillow she had finally decided was sacrificeable for table-leg cushioning. She sat back in her chair with a frown that said she had noticed the shift of mood in receiving the news.

Zia met her eyes as she set the mug down, and asked, to be sure, "Claire? What have you got over there?"  
  
She hadn't even had the chance to see the dinosaur in question, but she had also never heard the head of their dinosaur-preserving organization describe an animal with as much fear as Claire now put in one word.

"The Indoraptor."

* * *

  
  
The den in the valley contained three warm humans.  
  
He remembered them well, each of them, and had recognized them from a distance by scent, and later by sight.  
  
The smallest of them had hopped around the outside of the den not long ago, ascertaining that they had been visited during the night. Most of its movements were that of prey. A few tilts of the head, and clumsy skips forward when it thought it had noticed something new, however... those were distantly familiar.  
  
Had it always behaved that way, and he had only paid attention to that it smelled like food and ran away? Or perhaps the behavior itself had become more familiar to him since then.  
  
He had not attacked, though they would not have seen him in time if he had. They didn't know how close he was right now, when he knew exactly where they were, down to which parts of the den. They could look out the see-though parts of their walls, and they wouldn't detect him. The knowledge made the corners of his mouth lift, and he let out a quiet, stuttering hiss. If he wanted to, he could kill them, and there was nothing they could do.  
  
But he hadn't. It was good to remember he could, to reassure himself these ones wouldn't put him back in the small space underground, either, to a routine of pacing and getting struck with the spark-spitting sticks when he wouldn't do what the humans wanted him to—sometimes on purpose, to have them bring their limbs withing reach, if he could just ignore the pain enough to strike in time (and sometimes, just to have something happen because he chose for it to happen). Even if they tried to put him back there, he wouldn't have to go, because he could kill them.  
  
He raised his snout, to look at the big ceiling above that was changing color, no longer being a reflection of his scales. The amount of light still hurt his eyes a little when he adjusted, but it went away more and more quickly.  
  
In the air he could smell the humans in the den, and the humans living in their dens beyond the forest in the other direction. Closer still was one of those four-legged mammals some of which had horns, but he wasn't hungry enough to chase after it.  
  
He followed a third scent instead, along a trail, though it wasn't a fresh one anymore. A human would not have detected it, would not even have seen the occasional track left behind where the moss was dry enough it had stayed flat after having been trampled by a swift and silent gait of clawed feet.  
  
He would leave a trail of his own, of deeper tracks, but it hardly mattered when the only one who could follow them was at the end of these ones. Head raised, he stopped to scan his surroundings, then took off running. He already knew where she was, after all, close enough he could detect her just by that she was warm.


	4. Chapter 4

About twenty-four hours after their daughter had told her and Owen that she had seen his _other_ daughter—the scaly one—in the woods, Claire was no surer of what to do about it. Though it wasn't because nothing had happened since, or that they had gotten no new information on their situation.

The three of them were sitting together on the living room couch after they had just gotten back to the house, the walk there just as quiet as they were now, each waiting for someone to have an idea on how to proceed. Well, it was going to have to be her and Owen who made the decision, wouldn't it.

Maisie got up, and reached into a pocket of her hoodie. "Do we have the right kind of glue to attach this?" she asked, holding in her hand the rotor her drone was currently missing.

"Probably," said Owen, and got up, too, after giving Claire's shoulder a squeeze where he'd had an arm around her. "The whole thing's not too heavy, so it should work out fine. You wanna try fixing it now?"

Maisie glanced out a window, to where it was getting dark now.

"It'll have to skip tonight's test flight, though," Claire said, sensing her indecision. "The glue probably takes a day to properly dry, right?"

She and Owen exchanged a look. Maisie could probably tell what she was really saying, but maybe this was an easier way of hearing it. One where she could decide whether to admit it if she was scared.

"Yeah," Owen said, and gave Maisie a smile. "We'll see about tomorrow when it's tomorrow, okay? Did you get the photos out already from last night?" When Maisie shook her head, he added, "Better do that first, it's gonna need to stay still when the glue's still wet," and left to get his tool pack.

Maisie picked up the drone from where she had left it by the door last night, and took out the memory card. Instead of taking it to her room to hook it up to her computer just yet, she sat back down next to Claire.

"I'm all right," Maisie said, quietly. She fidgeted with the card by turning it around in her hands and kept her eyes on that, but she sat curled up so close she was almost in Claire's lap.

"I'm glad. If you change your mind about that, it's understandable, and you can tell us," Claire assured her, and then, because she couldn't be told that enough, could she, "I love you. We both do."

Maisie didn't say it back, and Claire had just decided it was good she wouldn't do so reflexively, when instead she said something better.

"I know, mom."

She didn't lift her gaze from her hands, so Claire treated it as normal, too. Which was to say instead of floating up into the sky powered by sheer joy, she gently ruffled Maisie's hair and said, "Good."

"Do you think Blue would let me take her picture?" Maisie asked. "With my phone—she might get scared of this flying at her."

Somehow, with the way today had gone, that she could still find going into the woods to visit a Velociraptor or waiting for one to come visit her in their yard something to consider, was actually comforting. In a way, things _had_ turned out so much better than they had expected, but, also no easier to adjust to.

"Maybe. I guess it's something we're going to get to ask her."

Claire wrapped Maisie up in a one-armed hug, her daughter's head coming to rest on her shoulder. She met Owen's eyes where he peeked around the corner, letting them have the moment to their own for a bit longer, and hoped that when it came to more than just whether to trust that the rotor was attached well enough to take the drone out for a spin, they would know better what to do tomorrow when it was tomorrow.

They had all talked about it, in the morning, before and after she had called Zia. Then they had tried to go about their day normally, as much as the knowledge of their new neighbors was distracting.  
  
Claire had caught up on other DPG business, and to her surprise had actually gotten news on the fifth Gallimimus. She _was_ fine, if not very popular with her housemates and therefore in isolation, at an ostrich farm of all places. She was in containment and treated well, and the farm had been given detailed instructions about her proper care, so the only concern was that they wanted to keep her, and it might not be the best solution for her in the long run. They didn't have the facilities to house the rest of her herd along with the modern birds they specialized in. Perhaps something could be arranged, though.  
  
She still kept contact with politicians and local officials as well, to appeal on the behalf of the dinosaurs' (and pterosaurs', even the Mosasaur's) capture rather than killing—and if they were causing no trouble, having them be left in peace were they were. The safety of humans and that of the prehistoric animals still didn't need to automatically be mutually exclusive.  
  
She had even addressed Blue today, though without mentioning her location just yet. As an intelligent predator capable of lurking around human inhabitation relatively unseen, her being on the loose raised a lot of questions. At least so far Claire had been able to point out that despite these abilities, the dreaded Velociraptor had not (at least not with undeniable proof connecting her to the incident) actually attacked a human since scurrying off into the woods from the mansion, so it could be concluded she wasn't seeking out opportunities to do so.  
  
Claire had been hoping Blue would continue being a positive example. And, that her good reputation and Claire's hard work would not be ruined by the other raptor potentially lurking in people's backyards unseen. That it hadn't, so far, had not made it much more comforting that it was apparently her own family's backyard it had been lurking around.  
  
Claire's leg that carried a permanent reminder of their last meeting was still a little stiff, and still needed physical therapy, but the wound left by the Indoraptor's claw had closed and mostly healed into a scar. It wasn't holding her back, and she hadn't let it do so even five minutes after gaining it.  
  
Back then, months ago now, when Owen had reluctantly left her behind to go save Maisie, Claire had been on her feet soon after, having noticed another gun on the floor near a mercenary's corpse, and she had followed the two people who had since become her family, ready to defend them if they needed it. She wasn't sure how things would have gone if they _had_ needed the rescue, but it had been when she had started climbing the stairs that she had realized how much she wouldn't have forgiven herself if there had been something she could have done to save them, and they had died because she hadn't bothered.  
  
She had wondered this morning, when the Indoraptor had become relevant to their lives again more than hypothetically, whether not drawing attention to its likely location yet for fear it would get Blue hurt, in hopes it was only passing through, would be the same as witholding that rescue from someone else's family.  
  
Claire herself hadn't really had time to plan to be a parent. It wasn't something she had ever been opposed to—she liked children, even though usually she had found herself kind of awkward around them from lack of practice, less so after DPG work had involved a lot of educating the young as well as the old—but it hadn't seemed to fit her schedule. She liked to think she was pretty good at reorganizing around the unexpected, though, much as it right now seemed challenging when it came to a particular unexpected. Maisie had been hers and Owen's and they had been Maisie's the moment they had met her.  
  
Claire had worried (and her sister had worried enough for the both of them, but Claire supposed that as a divorcee with kids from that marriage she knew what she was talking about) that she would be getting back together with her ex for the sake of a child both of them were only beginning to know, and that it would go about as well as any relationship kept on life support just because you had kids together did. It might have, if that had been all. But even though she had left and it had been the right decision, they had never really become exes, had they.  
  
She and Owen had first gotten together after one bad date and a day-long near-death experience, and the dust of that experience settling had reminded them of why that first date had been so bad. Being apart on the other hand had reminded them of why they had been able to rely on each other that day, and doing so again had made it clear that was worth working through what had separated them.  
  
So that's what they had been doing. All three of them had a lot to work through, but as the distance from _this_ near-death experience had grown, things had instead started falling into place.  
  
And then today, Claire had watched her daughter go from joyously exploring a new thing about her surroundings to spending the day peeking out windows, careful not to turn her back on any that were close. She hadn't seemed too terrified, but she had clearly been keeping surveillance. Inbetween that and eating, she had been texting her friends. Claire hadn't asked what she had told them about her weekend, but she knew her well enough by now it had not involved dinosaurs.  
  
Some would say Maisie was good at keeping secrets. Claire thought it was pretty heartbreaking how practiced she seemed to be at making herself not talk about something important to her. She didn't doubt Maisie had been loved—wouldn't have been created in the first place if there hadn't been love. How much of it had been for _her_ instead of the person she was a clone of, though, and how much had she been seen as her own person rather than as a second version of someone? Being expected to turn out _like_ one's parent was pressure enough for a kid.  
  
Owen had tried to act almost overcompensatingly normal at first today, to reassure Maisie and perhaps Claire, but had noticed soon it hadn't been working. After giving up on that he had joined Maisie at the window lookout, sometimes drawing her into a conversation to take both their minds off the situation—or, at least the scarier part of it. They had mostly talked about Blue.  
  
When they had gotten to stories of Blue and her sisters' infancy, his voice had started catching mid-sentence. But he had been smiling, and Maisie had been, too.  
  
Claire's own memory of Echo was hard to separate from getting her snapping jaws in her lap through a van's side window, or of Delta from seeing her bite a man's arm off in front of Claire and her nephews, whom Delta had also tried to bite not long before that. Charlie she had barely met in person, but she had watched Owen find her in the forest after the raptors had attacked the soldiers accompanying them, their meeting seen through the camera strapped to Charlie's head. Claire had held her breath then, fearing she would soon see Owen get bitten, too, from the point of view of his attacker.  
  
It hadn't happened, and not just because the screen had suddenly been blackened by what Claire had later found out to have been a rocket.  
  
Owen had told her Charlie had seemed more confused than anything, like she hadn't understood why Owen had been pointing a gun at her when they were supposed to be pack. Maybe that was why the other three had cornered him later, to confront him about his loyalties. Owen had said he at least liked to believe, after having given it thought, that maybe the raptors had never intended to betray him and Barry, but had felt betrayed themselves, by how they had behaved like by turning on the InGen people the raptors had turned on _them_ , too—like their humans had chosen to be associated with the other humans instead of with the pack.  
  
It was easier to remember Blue's sisters fondly with that in mind. They had been scary, dangerous animals, but they had felt fear, too, even fear of abandonment. In the end they had died defending their pack, which they might have at that point considered Claire and her nephews to be part of, through their human parent's connection to them.  
  
It had been easier still when at Maisie's request Owen had opened a long-neglected folder on his laptop, and the three of them had gathered on the couch to watch four pocket-sized Velociraptors roll around on the floor of their nursery, playing with dog and cat toys.  
  
Claire had found herself remembering another dinosaur, one whose creation she was partially responsible for. For the first time in a while, she had let herself wonder if the Indominus had been that adorable while younger.  
  
She hadn't personally visited the 'asset' much before the day it—she—had escaped, only received reports of her growth, which had been remarkably fast for such a large animal. The Indominus rex had reached what her creators had deemed adulthood in twenty-one months after her hatching, though Henry had hoped she would continue growing in size—'bigger than a T. rex' was very marketable, after all, but knowing Henry's other allegiances at the time, and especially later, that probably hadn't been the only reason (maybe it had been a test of how well he could manipulate specifically the hybrid's size, to later make a second version that was a fraction of hers—the right size to fit in buildings humans would hide in). Several reptiles that could grow their whole lives had been spliced into her genome, so it was possible she would have, though from the reports it had seemed that as an adult the pace of growth had been so slow it could only have been mentioned to investors as a technical truth. She really had been made as an experiment just to see what would happen, hadn't she.  
  
Despite the artificial origin, and difficulty finding a place to fit in the world, that had been a real animal (alive, like Maisie), and after all the new perspective she had gained to the dinosaurs in general as living beings deserving of respect and sympathy, Claire had thought she had already come to terms with that.  
  
The Indominus hadn't been given much chance at a childhood. She had had no chance at all to simply _be_ , with her happiness as a priority. Claire had been informed she had been provided with enrichment, but it had hardly been sufficient, had it, or she might have felt more content in her paddock. Perhaps her disturbing treatment of her sibling could have been prevented, too, by parents who had known how to raise her. The Indominus had never had even incompetent ones.  
  
Neither had the Indoraptor, had it—had _he_ —not even a paddock. Sitting on the couch with her family (like she was just now; it seemed like a good place to seek comforting), Claire had watched baby Charlie trip over her own feet while running after a jingling ball, baby Echo kick a kong in the air, baby Delta sniff at a chew toy before pouncing on it, and baby Blue dive into a cat tunnel, and had tried to picture a small, white theropod with too big arms to be a baby T. rex, or a small, black raptor with fiery, red-orange eyes, doing the same.  
  
And then the something had happened, to give them more information on their current situation.  
  
Maisie had glanced out the window again, letting her gaze stray from the screen for only a moment, and something had caught her eye. When she had quickly turned to look again, causing Claire and Owen to do so, too, there had stood Blue, at the edge of their lawn, with some small item delicately held in her mouth.  
  
Owen had gone outside, carefully so she wouldn't be startled, and slowly approached her as Claire and Maisie had watched from the porch. After a few steps, Blue had started walking, too, until they had been almost within touching distance of each other. Despite knowing of and trusting their bond, Claire had held Maisie a little behind herself as Blue had dropped the item she had carried from the forest—the rotor that had broken off from Maisie's drone—and taken the final step, suddenly bringing her face within barely two feet of Owen's.  
  
Then Claire had heard a sound she had recognized, from having just heard it many times, though on the video it had been lighter due to the animal making it being smaller. She had heard the slow, purring trill in this form, as well, the first time she had seen Blue let Owen that close without a cage or a muzzle restraining her.  
  
Blue had inched her head even closer, a little bowed. When Owen had raised a hand to stroke the arch of her snout, she had pushed into the touch. She had closed her eyes and Owen had laughed softly, and Claire had stopped holding her breath.  
  
"Hi there, girl," Owen had said. "I missed you."  
  
Then Blue had quickly backed away and turned to run back into the forest.  
  
Owen had made a surprised sound, and she had stopped and turned her head back. Not like she had at the mansion, taking one last look at her human parent—which he was to her, Claire was sure now. That sound was one she hadn't heard the baby raptors make at each other once, though it was clearly affectionate and they apparently had a selection of such vocalizations reserved for siblings, too; this one had to be between parents and children. Standing at the edge of the forest and looking back at Owen, Blue had seemed to consider her options, and after coming to a conclusion, she had let out a loud, barking call, taken a few steps, and turned to look at him again.  
  
"She wants me to follow her," Owen had said out loud what Claire had guessed, too.

He had looked at Claire, for advice, and all she had been able to give was, "Be careful."  
  
Maybe not of Blue, but she wouldn't be the only one out there. She _had_ offered to protect him before, even while already injured. None of them wanted to have to find out whether she _could_.  
  
After a nod, Owen had followed her into the woods.  
  
"Dad, wait!" Maisie had suddenly shouted, and run after him, as soon as he had almost disappeared from sight into the trees. Claire had called her name and followed, too, torn between worry on one had, and joy on the other at that having been the first time she had called either of them by such terms.  
  
Blue had not seemed to mind having them along, though she had kept a distance. So in the end, the three of them had gone together, holding hands, following a Velociraptor.  
  
Claire and Owen had not seen anything out of the ordinary in the forest around them, but Maisie's head had turned quickly to look at one thing after another that had seemed to mean something to her. She had always been observant with a keen eye for things other people missed, but usually it was cute, or something to take parental pride in. Now she had accompanied every turn of her head with a frightened gasp, and Claire had thought they should have made her turn back when the house had still been in view.  
  
To answer the question what she had seen, Maisie had shaken her head.  
  
"I don't see him," she had whispered. "But he's been here. _Everywhere_ here. I don't know which way he's gone."  
  
Claire had held her hand tighter and had not had to ask who she meant.  
  
Where Blue had led them must have been in the middle of the strip of forest, as far away from all edges as she had managed, because by the time they had stopped, all sounds of human civilization had disappeared. They had come to a small clearing surrounded by a thick layer of bushes and shorter trees, and a cluster of large, moss-covered boulders on one side. It had been mostly covered from above by the foliage, and the ground had been cushioned by soft moss and tufts of grass, some of it wilted dry and looking like it had been brought from elsewhere, and a lot of it pressed flat by multiple, overlapping imprints. On the opposite side from the boulders, Claire had noticed piles of bones of small animals, and further away in the bush, she had seen what had to be a large ribcage and a pair of antlers.  
  
Blue had brought them to her den.  
  
Just as nervous, paranoid doubts of how maybe she had lured in at least Claire and Maisie to be dinner, after all, had started creeping in, Blue had made the trilling sound again. This time it had been a little different, insistent and louder, and aimed at a bundle of loose, dry grass on a slightly raised mound of earth at the back of the den.  
  
The dry grass had begun to rustle. Then it had trilled back.  
  
Out of the grass nest had jumped a small dinosaur—a small _raptor_ , to be exact; speckly gray with a blue stripe running from the corners of the eyes to the tail on each flank, looking so much like the baby they had just watched play with her sisters that Claire had thought she might be hallucinating. But the others had seen her, too (or, at least 'she' felt appropriate, with the close resemblance, Claire still didn't know if it was accurate).  
  
"Blue... _is that_...?" Owen had started, watching the infant hobble to the adult Velociraptor.  
  
The baby had made the trilling sound again in greeting, and gotten an affectionate nudge from the snout of who had to be her mother.  
  
"She's so _cute_ ," Maisie had gasped, and let go of her parents' hands to take a careful step forward.  
  
They had both put a hand on her shoulder instead, and she had stopped, but Blue had not seemed to consider the human child a threat to hers.  
  
Blue had trilled at Owen again. The baby raptor had paid careful attention.  
  
It had been an introduction.  
  
Owen's hand had been shaking as he had knelt down and reached forward, the baby taking little hops towards him. Finally, the tips of his fingers had been given a curious sniffing, and as soon as she had been done with that the baby had quickly returned to her mother, who had lain down in the grass, and welcomed her with a lick on her small snout. No part of Owen's hand had been bitten off, so they had taken it has a sign of approval.  
  
Maisie had knelt next to him, and Claire on her other side.  
  
Maisie hadn't tried to approach the dinosaurs again, but she and the baby raptor had looked at each other from where they had each been cuddled up to their parents. The baby raptor had tilted her head to the side, and Maisie had mirrored the movement with her own, then nodded forward slowly. A giggle had chimed through the clearing when the dinosaur had copied her in turn, all the louder when it had been joined by a small chirp.

Claire had felt guilty for having been so unsure of whether Blue's intentions towards them would be friendly. But then again, being different species _was_ quite the language barrier to navigate around, on both sides.  
  
"How does she have...?" she had finally asked, her voice a little quivering, and she had felt tears gathering in her eyes even as she had smiled.  
  
She hadn't been the only one tearing up, and why would she have been. It wasn't every day you found out you were a _grandfather_.  
  
Owen had shaken his head, not having an answer, and Claire hadn't expected one.  
  
"How old is the baby?" she had asked instead.  
  
"I... think about a month, or a bit older," Owen had said, and his gaze had been drawn to the base of the mound the baby had apparently been sleeping on. Barely visible now and scattered, but unmistakeably, there had been fragments of eggshell on the grass, answering the question whether Blue had arrived in the area only last night. The baby had hatched in this nest. That Blue had come be near them for that would probably mean she was staying, too. "She looks so much like Blue did at that age," Owen had sighed. "Although..."  
  
It hadn't been an exact match, Claire could tell, too. The Blue in the video logs, even while older than her baby was now, had been a lighter shade of gray, almost white under the darker specks. Being about the same color as her mother now, the baby's scales would likely become darker than hers while growing up. It should certainly help at telling them apart even when they would eventually be the same size, Claire had thought.  
  
The baby's gait had been odd, though Claire hadn't been quite sure how agile a nestling raptor should be expected to be while that young. The baby had walked in a way typical to a Velociraptor most of the time, but had sometimes dropped to all fours to stand. Owen had seemed to have noticed it, too. Claire hadn't been able to see any obvious causes, but had thought it might be an injury, or a disability she had been born with.  
  
Claire had wondered if Blue could be persuaded to let a vet examine the baby. Perhaps she could, if the vet was Zia. How well Blue understood that Zia had saved her life was difficult to say, but she would remember who had let her out of her cage at the mansion.  
  
Maisie had grabbed Claire's hand again, then, and stood up.  
  
Claire had looked up to see her daughter's eyes wide with fear. Just as she had been about to ask what was wrong, she had heard a branch snap— _right_ next to her.  
  
Claire had struggled back to her feet and backed away, pushing Maisie behind her. Owen had gotten up, too, and quickly put himself in front of all of them, including Blue, and Claire would later wonder if he had even consciously decided to do so or if it was instinct by now.  
  
Together they had watched one of the moss-covered rocks just outside the clearing unfold from where it had been curled up, and change color, from green and gray to shiny black broken by a bright, golden stripe. The Indoraptor had climbed from between the two actual boulders with sure footing, claws clacking against the rock, eyes on the humans just like they must have already been the whole time they had spent at the den. Then his attention had turned to Blue, who had now gotten up from the ground.  
  
Blue had gently pushed past Owen and walked over to the Indoraptor—and, touched her snout to his with a soft coo.  
  
Before any of them had had the time to process _that_ , Blue's nestling had hopped to where they were standing, too. Claire had watched the Indoraptor's large head bend down, his eyes on Owen, the human closest to the dinosaurs. The baby had butted the top of her head to the Indoraptor's chin, right under the sharp, crooked teeth, and for that had been given a careful, affectionate nudge.  
  
The humans had gathered together again, at the entrance to the den, their hands finding each other's to hold, and had watched the three of them.  
  
The nestling had repeated the headbutt, and followed it up with a cheerful, familiar, purring trill.


End file.
